Radio Silence Ended

As I started to write this post I realized that the activity that's gone on this past two weeks was in reality squished into just one. That should give you an idea of how draining the past week has been. We've kept much of this information pretty quiet as we found ourselves in a position of having to make some tough decisions. I didn't want to post anything until we knew for sure what we were going to do so to those of you who've been hoping to hear everything right way, my apologies but I know you'll understand.

Let me say first that Jeff and I feel that everything has worked out the way it's supposed to. We feel very good about the outcome and are looking ahead to what comes next for us.

On Friday the 18th we got the call from LSS - our referral had come for a 3-month-old baby boy. We received a packet of information from LSS containing all sorts of information about the baby and the birth mom. I won't be sharing most of it out of consideration for their privacy but the relevant points are easy to share generically.

Baby boy was born at approximately 7 months gestation but otherwise seemed healthy. He'd spent a little over a month in the hospital but didn't require any special care - to our knowledge, no oxygen, no drugs - he just needed time to grow. We'd always planned to use the services of the U of M International Adoption Clinic (IAC) and considering his preemie status, we submitted his information that afternoon. We were lucky enough to get a reply right away on Saturday. The IAC said many positive things about his length and weight but also pointed out a couple concerns in the bloodwork of the birth mom and family history - they wanted us to get more information if at all possible. What luck! Our adoption worker - who is also the Director of Intercountry Adoptions for LSS - just happened to be traveling to the RMI and was leaving on Thursday. She requested an extension from the CAA to give us time to gather more information and left on Thursday morning armed with the referral, the IAC assessment and all our questions.

Thinking we wouldn't hear anything until early next week, we didn't expect a phone call on Friday afternoon. Seems some "interesting developments" had occured and our contact in the LSS office here had called to share them. We knew from the referral that the birth mom had another son that she'd place for adoption. Our LSS contact told us that the adoption was 4 years ago, that she'd kept in contact with them (normal for open adoptions), and that the couple had agreed to adopt the baby boy if he was available. Wow. The CAA & LSS reassured us that the decision was ours to make - we could accept the referral if we wanted. Jeff and I immediately knew what our decision would be and even though we weren't in the same room, we just knew that the other would agree. We declined the referral. While sad and emotional, it was actually a very easy decision - it was best for baby boy.

We did receive assurances from the Director of the CAA in the RMI that we would be at the top of the list for the next referral. I have a sense that both agencies involved are a bit embarrased by what has happened. It's almost a universal standard that when a second child is born to a woman who's placed an earlier child for adoption, that the adopting parent(s) be given the chance to adopt the biological sibling. Somehow, this didn't happen for this one. I'm not sure how it was missed since it was one of the first things that jumped out at us from the pages of the referral - I'd assume that both agencies had already addressed the issue by the time the referral was made to us. I'm sure there the CAA will put processes in place to catch these things going forward and that LSS will be a little more observant when reading/screening the potential referrals. At least I can hope.

So that's where we stand now - back in waiting mode. Know that Jeff and I really are okay with the decision. We now have a little more time to prepare for the child that will eventually be ours. I'll keep posting as things come up and again, will try to keep them coming at least once a week. In the meantime, we're going to meet up with one of the families that adopted almost 2 years ago for lunch down the block. Life goes on :)